As You Sow | Uncovering Conflict of Interest

This report compares millions of proxy voting records from January 2015 to June 2020 to commercial relationships, which uncovers the fact that all major fund managers considered — BlackRock, State Street, T. Rowe Price, and Vanguard — vote with management of their customers at a significantly higher rate compared to non-customers. Proxy voting biases favoring clients occurred at all four asset managers on management resolutions and occurred at three of the four asset managers; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) resolutions; and climate-related resolutions. The bottom line is that proxy voting by major asset managers favors their clients — a clear conflict of interest. More stringent reporting requirements and new technological and policy solutions should be implemented to remove proxy voting conflicts of interest and allow shareholder interests, as intended, to be the primary driver of proxy voting.